Sydney Morning Herald columnist

The mask has dropped. We now see the real character of the man who leads Australia, a man so overbearing, so dysfunctional, so self-obsessed that his own government sacked him in his first term, unprecedented in Australian politics, and a third of the cabinet departed rather than serve with him when he returned.

There is no new Rudd. There is only the Dear Leader who, on Monday, expects the federal Labor caucus to approve measures he has proposed that would make it almost impossible to remove him from the leadership if he wins the election.

On Friday, Rudd revealed that he will do anything, say anything, trash any principle, if he thinks it will keep him in power.

His Devil's Island tactic, putting asylum seekers in tents on a malarial island off the coast of an impoverished, violence-ridden state, is malevolent politics. He has made a massive bet that he can get away with this ploy before it can be tested by the courts, where it would almost certainly be rejected.

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This does not concern Rudd. Legal challenges take months. He is thinking in weeks. He just wants to get across the line, win the election, and clean up the mess afterwards. The mess he made.

The policy of turning back the boats is humane compared with this policy. Not surprisingly, there was a riot at the detention centre on Nauru on Friday night, leaving the centre destroyed by its inmates and a bill estimated at $60 million - to be footed by you.

Even the opposition, which has always supported offshore processing of asylum seekers, appears gobsmacked by Rudd's audacity. As Scott Morrison - the immigration spokesman and a man not noted for softness on border protection - pointed out, it will take years to build a functioning processing centre on Manus Island, as distinct from the row of tents that Rudd is now treating as a policy centrepiece.

Rudd's Devil's Island ploy is beyond cynical. It is grotesque. The policy has not a shred of functional credibility, policy consistency or moral coherence.

In an essay in The Monthly in October 2006, Rudd wrote: ''Another great challenge of our age is asylum seekers. The biblical injunction to care for the stranger in our midst is clear. The parable of the Good Samaritan is but one of many which deal with the matter of how we should respond to a vulnerable stranger in our midst. That is why the government's proposal to excise the Australian mainland from the entire Australian migration zone and to rely almost exclusively on the so-called Pacific solution should be the cause of great ethical concern to all the Christian churches.''

After winning government in 2007 and dismantling the Howard government's effective border protection measures, the then minister for immigration, Chris Evans, enunciated the reasons for doing so: ''Labor committed to abolishing the Pacific solution and this was one of the first things the Rudd Labor government did on taking office. It was also one of my greatest pleasures in politics.

''Neither humane nor fair, the Pacific solution was also ineffective and wasteful. At massive cost to the Australian taxpayer - I am advised that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship expended $309.8 million between September 2001 and February 29, 2008 to run the Nauru and Manus offshore processing centres - the Howard government sought to outsource our international protection obligations to less-developed countries when we should have been shouldering them ourselves … the Pacific solution was not about maintaining integrity or public confidence in Australia's arrangements. It was about the cynical politics of punishing refugees for domestic political purposes.''

In 2009, the government's hubris was encapsulated by federal Labor MP Michael Danby, who - after a tour of the 800-bed, $400 million detention centre on Christmas Island built by the Howard government - likened the facility to a ''stalag'', a ''German prisoner-of-war camp'' and an ''enormous white elephant''.

Within a year the centre was overflowing, which made Danby a stalag operator. Now he and the rest of the government are committed to operating a punitive tent camp in Papua New Guinea. As the number of boat arrivals began to swell, Rudd maintained the pretence that his policies were having little material effect.

To support this fiction, boat people were transferred to Christmas Island but housed in a construction camp, and private accommodation and an obsolete facility at Phosphate Hill - anywhere but the new detention centre. Reality prevailed, the centre was opened and quickly filled, 200 extra bunk beds were shipped in, a 500-bed detention centre opened in Darwin, and demountable homes, meant for Aborigines, were flown from Alice Springs to Christmas Island to increase the centre's capacity.

On and on it has since gone, creating a multibillion-dollar black hole that can only get bigger. ''It will not be inexpensive,'' Rudd said with a straight face as he announced his PNG ploy. ''Our responsibility … is to ensure that we have a robust system of border security and orderly migration … as well as fulfilling our legal and compassionate obligations under the refugees convention.''

Legal and compassionate obligations. What a dark joke. Two weeks ago I met long-serving foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer, who has friends on both sides of politics. This is what he had to say about Rudd: ''In all my years in politics I never encountered anyone more cynical, opportunistic and narcissistic than Kevin Rudd.

346 comments

Old Rudd, new Rudd. So what? Rudd is popular and is taking the fight to the hitherto unassailable Abbott. Abott's lack of policies and reliance on slogans has been exposed. The Labor government has been far from perfect, but it's not too bad, and now Abbott must make a real effort to show why a change is needed. Analyse that, Paul.

Commenter

tops

Date and time

July 22, 2013, 5:26AM

Rudd has actually totally undermined the position Abbott spent years building on the right/center right, knowing that left preferences will flow to him by default because the LNP have such an unpalatable leader.

If Turnbull was leading the LNP it would be q very different game but Abbott is a hopeless basket case with almost no positive appeal to the center/left of aus politics.

Tones Pushed too hard too soon for a total KO vs Gillard without appreciating the danger of them being able to sub Rudd. Poor play tony should have gone for the point victory until Gillard was locked in, and then got her on the ropes.

Rookie mistake.

Commenter

armchair general

Date and time

July 22, 2013, 6:25AM

When John Howard left government in 2007 there were only 4 refugees in detention. Since then over 46,000 refugees have arrived by boat costing billions of dollars and hundreds of deaths, all caused by Rudd dismantling border protection. Friday's deal with PNG is inhumane. Go read the travel advisory on PNG. It is a shocker. Yesterday Rudd arranged for television cameras to film him walking into a house of god. What hypocrisy. Rudd will do anything to retain power, no wonder his own party sacked him in 2010, remember what his own ministers said about him. Just wait until the people of PNG realise what has been done as asylum seekers will have better conditions, at Australia's expense. Do we want to want to be responsible for destabilising another country just to overcome the guilty conscience of Rudd?

Commenter

Peter

Location

Eaglemont

Date and time

July 22, 2013, 7:08AM

"If Turnball was leading th LNP it would be a very different game".Unfotunately, it would not be a very different game. It will not be a very different game under the charge of any mainstream politician. Until the Australian public realise that the two- party preferred system basically enshrines neo-liberal economic principles, nobody except the very wealthy and powerful will be materially better off and our environment will continue to deteriorate

Commenter

PostGrowthWorld

Location

ACT

Date and time

July 22, 2013, 7:34AM

If Turnbull was to take control of the Liberals, then decent conservatives could vote Liberal without fear and decent progressives could preference Liberal ahead of Labor.

As for quoting Downer on Rudd, perhaps we could quote Windsor on Abbott, eh Sheehan?

Commenter

Ross

Location

MALLABULA

Date and time

July 22, 2013, 7:41AM

We want Malcolm! We want Malcolm! We want Malcolm!

Commenter

klop

Date and time

July 22, 2013, 7:46AM

Paul's remarkably even-handed in his coverage. It's like having Gerard H. without the glasses.

Commenter

Cap'n Morgan

Location

Sydney

Date and time

July 22, 2013, 8:00AM

Donn't worry as none of it will happen, it is all froth and bubble. PNG if all goes as well as humanly possible will be able to house around 600 sometime next year. Unlikely to ever be able to house 3000 (a few weeks influx at the current rate).The "deal" was only for men so the smugglers will send women and children.Criminals and rejects will be sent to remain in Australia.The cost is like the NBN - simply a blank cheque.We will be paying for schools, hospitals, universities etc; there still leaving no money for the same issues in Australia.This is all with borrowed money.It is all smoke and mirrors and the gullible who embrace it will get what they deserve.Unfortunately those who see through the BS and lies will suffer alongside them.

Commenter

Benny

Location

Castle Hill

Date and time

July 22, 2013, 8:07AM

Abbott's "Stop the Boats" is significantly more than a slogan - there are a specific list of measures, all effective last time around, against people smugglers.You are just jumpimg on the old Labor argument they concocted under Gillard when everything Labor was doing was a failure. Move on and have a look at Rudd's unashamedly move on Western Sydney marginal seats he must hold at all costs to form government. That lies at the heart of this latest Rudd ploy and if you examine the detail the devil is soon exposed..

Commenter

Tim of Altona

Date and time

July 22, 2013, 8:20AM

Rudd is winning. The conservatives are in panic. One moment they bay like ferocious dogs,the next minute they deny its all happening. I love it. With a few decisions, Rudd has wiped out Abbott's sloganeering politics.Now he is just Mr 35% - unloved by nearly everyone.

STOP THE BOATS, he screamed. Well, Rudd has. Any boatperson gets to enjoy sunny New Guinea for the rest of their life. Abbott must be delirious with agreement.

The conservatives will enjoy the benefits of another few years in opposition - they do it so well.